Blending grays with your original or dyed hair color is the best way to transition to a more natural and lower-maintenance look.
A professional colorist will add highlights, lowlights, or both in varying techniques and shades to get a result that will mimic your natural growth pattern and the slight variations in tone across the different parts of your hair.
The most common highlights shades used in gray blending are ashy, silver, and platinum tones, as these are usually the closest matches to natural grays.
Unfortunately, as gorgeous as these colors look, they are typically way more challenging to achieve and can fade very fast if not cared for correctly.
In this article, I want to discuss some of the ways you can keep your gray blended hair healthy and gorgeous between salon appointments.
The Problem With Gray Blending & Why Your Hair Needs Special Care After
In most cases, blending your natural grays with highlights in ashy, silver, or platinum shades means your colorist has to lighten your hair to a very pale blonde (level 10, which is nearly white).
To get to that level of lightness, your hair needs to be bleached, possibly multiple times, which can be very damaging if not done by an experienced blonding specialist and followed by a professional treatment.
And even when gray blending is done using the highest quality products, you will still need to follow a proper hair care routine after to repair the damage, strengthen your hair, and keep it nourished and moisturized.
The second big issue that I don’t see discussed enough is color maintenance, and I’m not even talking about your highlights growing out.
Ashy, silver, and platinum tones are some of the quickest to fade due to the nature of the pigments used for these colors, so they will wash out and lose their cool effect more easily, potentially exposing brassy or yellow tones underneath.
Additionaly, exposure to the sun and heat can further break down the delicate pigments used in them, leading to faster fading. AND, some of the products that you need to use to keep the colors bright, like purple/blue shampoos, can also strip out the color if used too often.
If you’ve made it this far, it’s pretty clear by now that gray blended hair does require special care, right?
The good news is that with the right hair care routine and the right products, you can easily maintain the health and beauty of your mane, and that’s what we will look at next.
9 Hair Care Tips for Gray Blended Hair
Preventing Damage Pre-Blending
As I said earlier, bleaching can do a lot of damage to your hair, even if it’s just done for highlights. Luckily, there are a few things you can do before your appointment to prevent (too much damage) in the first place:
Start conditioning your hair a few weeks before seeing your colorist. Using high-quality deep conditioning masks and leave-in treatments can strengthen your hair and prepare it for the stress of bleaching.
Avoid using permanent dyes or any harsh chemical treatments before bleaching that can weaken your hair.
Limit heat styling and drying your hair with a blow dryer to protect your hair from excessive damage.
Keeping Hair Healthy After Blending
Here are tips for maintaining hair health long after your blending session.
Use a Bond-Builder To Repair Damage
One of the most important things you can do for your hair if it’s been significantly bleached is use a good quality bond-building treatment like Olaplex or K18 to help repair some of the broken disulfide bonds caused by the lightening process.
Every other week or even once every three weeks is enough for most people, but if you have significant damage, increase the frequency to once or twice a week until the hair’s condition improves.
Both Olaplex and K18 have a line of salon-quality products for home use; just ask your colorist which product they think will work best for your hair.
Switch Up Your Shampoo and Conditioner
Look for shampoos and conditioners that are color safe as well as sulfate-free and that prioritize hydration. These products are gentler on color-treated hair and won’t strip away moisture or color from your blended gray.
Our top choice is Oribe Silverati Shampoo, which contains keratin and macadamia oil, both ingredients that are great for restoring moisture and adding strength back to your hair.
To completely refresh your grays, top it off with Olaplex No.5P Blonde Enhancer Toning Conditioner. We love this product for its color-correcting and ultra-nourishing attributes. Infused with Olaplex’s signature bond-building technology, it also helps repair damage while keeping your color cool and fresh.
Use a Deep Conditioner
A deep conditioning treatment once a week should help maintain moisture levels, improve your hair’s texture, and add shine to it.
Choose a deep conditioner that is rich in hydrating ingredients such as hyaluronic acid, glycerin, or natural oils like argan or jojoba. Products formulated for color-treated hair or those that specifically target aging hair can provide additional benefits.
We love L’Oréal Paris’ EverPure Silver Care Sulfate Free Conditioner that provides a lot of nourishment and hydration and leaves hair softer and way more manageable after use.
Don’t Forget a Nourishing Mask
For an even deeper level of nourishment and hydration, consider a weekly mask treatment with a product that is specially formulated for silver hair.
Experts love the K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask for bringing gray hair back to life. Its unique K18Peptide formula works on a molecular level to repair damage, restore elasticity, and bring back softness, making your hair feel strong and silky with every use.
Another strong contender is Wella Professionals Color Fresh Mask. Infused with vitamin E and bamboo extract, it hydrates and protects against environmental factors while adding a subtle hint of color to enhance your silver strands.
Color Maintenance
Now, when it comes to maintaining the color of your beautiful ashy/cool blonde highlights, there are a few different aspects to it.
Using color-safe shampoos and hair care products, protecting your hair from UV rays, limiting washing and heat styling, and avoiding chlorinated water are all ways you can protect the color and prevent it from fading.
But because ashy, platinum, and silvery tones still fade pretty fast, you also need to regularly refresh the colors to keep them vibrant and bright.
Here’s how you can do that:
Using a Purple Shampoo
A purple shampoo containts violet pigments that neutralize yellow or brassy tones that may creep into your gray blended hair.
They work on the color wheel principle where purple sits opposite yellow, meaning it can counteract yellowish hues that often appear in lightened hair due to environmental factors such as sun exposure, washing hair with hard water, or when the cooler highlights tones start to fade.
A good option for lightened hair is Oribe’s Bright Blonde Shampoo that contains jojoba and olive oils plus lemon extracts for intense hydration. It also includes a ton of hair healthy ingredients like rice protein and chamomile extract and is sulfate-free!
Another great choice is DpHue Cool Blonde Shampoo that doesn’t contain any parabens, sulfates, or gluten, but does contain silk amino acids and silk protein that provide lots of hydration. Plus, the rich purple tone does an excellent job at eliminating any yellow or brassy tones.
Using a Toning Treatment
Toners are super important for enhancing or correcting the color of your highlights and work great for getting rid of any brassiness and yellow undertones that may appear as the cooler tones start to fade.
We highly recommend Wiig Toning Treatment, which is a home-use product that gives salon-quality results. Its pearly tone is perfect for bringing back the ashy/platinum hues, plus it adds a ton of shine! The product also contains proteins and plenty of moisture that will nourish your hair and protect it against any further damage.
Another expert-approved toning treatment is Pravana Chromasilk Vivids Clear. While this is often used in highlighting vivid colors, the clear version is a great choice for gray blended hair. It will gently neutralize any unwanted warmth in your hair and leave it looking sleek and shiny without altering the natural color too much.
Applying Hair Glaze or Gloss
Hair glazes and glosses are an excellent way to add a shiny finish to your hair while also subtly toning your highlights and natural base.
The two products are pretty similar, except hair glosses are said to have a slightly deeper penetration, so they usually deliver a smoother texture and the color will last longer too.
For an at-home product, try Kevin Murphy’s Crystal Angel colour enhancing shine treatment that is perfect for ashy, bright blonde, and silvery tones. It only takes 3-5 minutes for the product to work its magic and the result is instantly brightened hair with incredible shine.
You can also opt for a professional treatment, and our favorite is Wella Professionals’ Shinefinity Zero Lift Glaze. Its lightweight formula delivers mirror-like shine, reduces frizz, plus offers a ton of shades to match your highlights.
For a similar effect, Redken Shades EQ Hair Gloss provides an intense shine boost, leaving your gray hair and highlights feeling silky and smooth. Or you can ask your colorist for a treatment with Joico LumiShine Demi-Permanent Gloss, which is designed to repair damaged hair and provide moisture, all the while adding gorgeous shine and color correction.
Touch-Up Roots Whenever Necessary
If you find your highlights are growing out too fast and you need a quick refresh, a good root touch-up product can be a lifesaver for maintaining the blended look and covering any out-of-place grays.
Color Wow’s Root Cover Up is a natural-looking solution for covering grays and extending your highlights without a permanent commitment. It comes in many different shades, so you can find the perfect match for your specific hair color. The brush blends seamlessly with your natural hair and helps to create an almost flawless finish that looks like you just left the salon.
If you prefer a spray-based solution to brushes, Oribe Airbrush Root Touch-Up Spray delivers a precise finish and long-lasting coverage until your next shampoo. The formula is transfer-resistant, which means you won’t have to worry about color rubbing off on your clothes or pillowcase. Win-win!
Wrapping Up
Gray blended hair looks absolutely gorgeous and is a great way to transition to a lower maintenance style if you’re tired of constantly dyeing your hair. But just because it’s lower maintenance, it doesn’t mean it takes no work at all to keep it beautiful between appointments.
The trick is to create a hair care routine you know you can stick to and find high quality products that will help nourish and maintain the health of your hair. Plus, you’ll need to regularly tone the colors of your highlights to make sure that they still actually blend with your natural hair color instead of drawing more attention to your grays.
But once you’ve gotten your routine down and found the products that work for your hair, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to keep it healthy and beautiful at all times!
